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I had different expectations for this book. If you ask me, Brackett's subject is something different than "rest." Miriam-Webster defines it as "cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength," and I think Bracket's subject could better be described as "finding and maintaining sustainable balance" or something. But it was written in the 19th century so I'll try not to be so fussy. More importantly, she has some great things to say!
Chapter 1- Rest
She opens by describing the duties of a housewife, which are "multifarious and never-ending" (2). "The more humble and the more in earnest she grows, the more weary she gets, till she lives in a perpetual sense of not being able to draw one full breath. Many a woman will recognize the truth of these words, though it will seem to most men that they are exaggerated" (3). ((chuckle!))
"Peace and rest are the characteristics of the home. But it should not only be a peace which is a stifled war, and the Rest must come from the constant balance of complicated conditions, yielding at every side with a certain compensating movement, so that it shall yet be firm and supporting" (5). This is a goal we should have and for which we should fight! It is difficult, but women are suited to it, they are agile and can multi-task, and with more information & education on how to do it well ((this book)), "and she will free herself from the coils which render her breathing difficult, and find herself able to create a home without, in doing it, sacrificing herself. But in order to do this, she must work from within, outward; she must create within herself the strength which shall be equal to that pressing upon her from without. For it is only in a balance of forces that rest consists" (6). What we long for is the "harmony of demand and supply" (6) so that as the situation changes, we can change to suit it, like a sewing machine that can make the same sized stitches despite changes in tension. We do not long for rest as an "absolute do-nothingness" (6), like the woman whose epitaph ends "Oh nothing, sweet nothing forever!" because she was so exhausted. "It is doubtless true that Nirvana offers great attractions to many women, and that the preacher who would strive to lead them by picturing heaven as a place of continual activity is misdirecting his efforts" (8). ((Hah!)) Great insight on "the continual drudgery of dressing and undressing, which necessarily forms so large a part of the duties of every day, and which, whenever we become conscious of it, is so wearily tiresome" (9). ((So true. I'm tired now thinking about it.)) But that is what death is for. In life, as previously stated, the days are about balancing "the inside and the outside conditions of life" (9). She wisely points out that this can happen by one or the other must be turned up or down, "And this tuning cannot be done once for all, but must be a continual care" (9). Even giving something a name can give rest, as can creating creeds and laws and treaties-- but even these are being constantly amended. "the history of the world is only a story of perpetual revision in one region or another" (11). "Whether in large or in small affairs, there must be perpetual readjustment" (12).
"Where the harmony between the inner desire and the outside circumstances does not exist--in other words, where there is no rest--the question to be settled first of all is which of the two is to be changed... The thoughtless person goes blindly to work, changing the first condition that presents itself to view, though the fact that it does so present itself may be a mere accident" (13). "If you decide, after a careful review of all the outside circumstances, that they cannot be altered, then your task is to mould your own mind into harmony with these conditions" (14). This is a "perpetually active process" (15). Getting some time and distance between you and your problems helps: "Try in the freedom of your mind to withdraw from them by never so little a space, and the crossing and tangled lines will begin to weave into some kind of order" (15).
Then right after-- "Necessity--that is, God and His world, the whole of it--stands outside of you. Within you, you have the freedom which God has given. It is your business to reconcile that necessity and that freedom, since it is only in such reconciliation that Rest can be found. Find it!" (15).
"Over and over again, Rest consists simply in producing harmony between the individual and her surroundings or the conditions under which she has to live. This harmony must be created by herself, for when God created us in His own image He could not do otherwise than to make us active agents, and to ordain that if we wanted anything, we must get it for ourselves. You cannot teach the child by forcing facts upon him; so long as you do this, they remain foreign to him. It is only the knowledge that he himself takes in and assimilates till it becomes part of his being that goes towards his education. He himself must reach out actively for it or it can never become his. It is so with Rest" (16). Rest is all around us, we need to "reach out and take it" (20), and first we must realize that it is right there-- like fish realizing that the sea is right there.
"Resignation is not merely a passive state. It is an intensely active one in which the soul is standing on tiptoe 'with arms out-stretched and eager face ablaze.'...We are not Orientals, and Allah is not the name of our God. The freedom the Orient has never known and can never know if ours, but only for a great price, and that price, our own effort....You must have trust in Someone else than yourself, and a in a wiser Sight than your own. If you have not this trust, you must fight for it till you win it. Sometimes the people who claim to love God most, trust Him least" (21-23).
"It is the results which we have garnered that are of consequence to us, not the steps by which we attained them. It is what we are, not what we have done, or what any one else has done, that concerns us. If our lives have been worth anything, they have given us some degree of insight, which his only a sort of mental instinct telling us at once what to do under certain conditions" (26-27). "It seems possible that the gathered and assorted experiences of our lives here are to become the instincts of our live hereafter--the instincts with which we shall start on that new life" (28). "After all, every day which seems so long and so hard to us is only a part of the whole, and not a whole in itself; and many a trouble and vexation, many a thing hard to bear and difficult to manage, will lose much of its importance in our eyes if we can stop to remember that tit is only a part of a whole which we cannot see, and a component of a smaller whole--the life given to us" (31).
Chapter 2- Necessity
The duties of a woman are many, and her days are full of laborious tasks without breaks or variation. The more modern conveniences come along to help, the more there is to do. "We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares" (43). The work of keeping house is never ending, as soon as you finish in one area of focus, you realize another needs tending to. "We are always getting ready to live, and never having time enough to live" (42).
This is all so overwhelming. "To our own power of invention, therefore, we must turn if we would not be overcome" (45). Ideas:
--"increasing the elasticity of our income," by patching, finding new uses for old things instead of buying something new, and planning in order to buy things out of season when prices are lower. This can be exhausting, but "planning comes next to creating, and to create is essentially the part of woman" (48). "There would not have been so much pleasure in the Creation if it had not bee preceded by chaos. To overcome difficulty is pleasure, because it gives always a sense of power, than which there is nothing more agreeable" (49). So, in regards to income, we should aim to "overcome the necessity which confronts us, without own freedom of invention" (49).
--"To secure time for all we do, we must offset the rapidity of its flight by reducing as many of our actions as possible to automatism" (49). "The only wise way for us is to hand over as many little things as possible to the care of automatism, and to conquer monotony by bringing larger and more fruitful interests into our minds and the space left thus free" (66). Training ourselves to do this makes us move faster, and saves our mental energies for things that are more pleasant, and work is less "wearying" (50). "To have our thinking set free from the common, every-day affairs of daily life, is the very thing we are most earnestly striving towards" (51). She uses the example of learning to walk becoming automatic. "As long as the house is well organized, and the daily work running its habitual grooves, it runs itself, so to speak" (53). "What we learn for the sake of knowledge, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained" (59).
--Having a planner is a good way to use these facts to our benefit in accomplishing the goal of time efficiency. ((pp 59-64- I think she's talking about bullet journaling. NO, it's actually something called "The Standard Diary"-- still make them today. -https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/06/01/the-daily-planner-american-history/WncDRG5hq7B9m0w3cE5jkM/story.html- But Bullet Journalling is better.)) "It is largely the constant making of decisions that tires us" (64). ((YES!! See: The Power of Habit.)) "It can never be often enough repeated that it is the constant succession of little things and small anxieties that wear upon us, not the great things" (66). "It is always a positive gain of time to make our plans beforehand and in quiet, when we can see clearly. It is like taking directions from Philip sober instead of from Philip drunk, and that saves time and useless work" (67).
--Manage your home with detailed planning and anticipation. The importance of giving clear, detailed directions to servants, having the division of work written down and planned in advance is promoted. "The object for her ["the housekeeper"] is the quietness, order, and comfort of the house, and the servants are only a means to this end" (68). "If we are not the possessors of an instinct for order, we must create and diligently cultivate it" (70). "Go on, patiently putting and keeping outside things in order, and you will find that after awhile, you are beginning to gain a mental grip of the problems which beset you" (75). "You are not able to think clearly and logically in a room where everything is in confusion" (76).
--Keep your inner world at peace by keeping your body from expelling needless energy-- fidgeting, asking questions that have answers which don't concern you. She preaches maintaining inward order by first keeping the body still. "Learn to keep still, and you will feel the quieting influence all through your life" (77). "No one can tell how much of the beautiful serenity of the Quakers comes from the outward stillness and quiet of their worship" (78). "After we discover that the people who sit still on a long railroad journey will reach that journey's end at precisely the same time as those who 'fuss' continually, we have a valuable piece of information which we should not fail to put to practical use" (80). She describes how to walk up the stairs in a way that conserves energy. "Take care of yourself in such little ways as these. Try in every way to acquire a habit of quietness" (81).
--These things are ways to take care of yourself, to prevent draining of your "nerve force." She has much to say for prevention of this, and how to treat it if needed. "Help yourself out of the stores of aid which he has provided for you from the foundation of the world. And if you must have tonics, take those also from Him, in sunshine, pure air, exercise, regular hours, healthful food, and, above all perhaps, in sleep. Religiously avoid all others. It is vain hoping to restore nerve-power by the recourse to medicine" (82). "What you have done by a long series of drafts upon your nerve strength, whether necessary or not, can be made up only by a long series of efforts at patience and of will-power to keep yourself still and in the way of recovery" (83). At first this sounds like a rebuttal of medical treatment, which I will try to forgive since there was far less understanding of "maladies which imply or consist in loss of nerve-power, such as suppression gout, hysteria, neuralgia, insomnia, chorea, epilepsy, melancholia, and general loss of mental control" (82) when this book was published in 1892. I imagine that if Anna Brackett was still writing, she would tell us to take advantage of modern medicine. But I think the intention of this section is to avoid thinking of "tonics" (medicine) as panaceas, and to look to easy fixes. (Oh, there are pages and pages to be written about how this fits into mental health: medicine is good in many cases but is never the only aspect of a good treatment plan.)
She ends the chapter with the insight that all of this has been about how to "meet the demands of modern life, and conquer necessity" (86). She closes the chapter by saying we should consider what our main goal is. "Look carefully through all the claims pressing upon you in your complicated life, and decide once and for all what is the one really important and overmastering duty in it, and should be the one dominating aim. Then remember that if you succeed in that, the others, so multifarious, are really no more than the fringe of the garment... What that is for each woman, no other person can decide for her" (87).
Chapter 3- Freedom
What is it that you really, really want? You have the freedom to pursue it. "It is the old story; first make up your mind what you want to do with your life, and then decide the question of dress, as every other question, by that test" (108).
--Beware wanting what you don't have. "There are many things that perhaps you would like to do or like to have; first bear in mind the undoubted truth that there are perhaps only one or two things in the world which are not far more charming in desire than they are in possession" (93). "For pleasure lies in the pursuit, not the attainment" (94).
--Beware wanting what others think you should want. "The truth is that too much, not too little, is taken of the unthinking advice tossed at us every day, often forgotten by the giver" (99). Not that you should never get advice, "But the fact is that there is only one person who can decide a problem, because he is the only one knowing all the conditions, external and internal, and that is the person whose problem it is" (101).
--Don't think you have to read everything just because it's there! "Have always some reason for reading a magazine article or let it alone" (112). ("If you read only the best, you will have no need of reading the other books, because the latter are nothing but a rehash of the best and the oldest" (113).
"There can be no work, whatever it may be, that is so exhausting as painful emotion; while on the other hand, mercifully, there is no tonic so upbuilding and renewing as joy, which sets into active exercise every constructive power of the body, and whose rush is like the leap of the books in spring from strong mountain-tops to the lowlands (117). "And there will always be restlessness and fatigue till peace is born of inner freedom" (118).
Chapter 4--Restlessness
Our tendency toward restlessness:
--"The human spirit is always asking after a place where it may stop and build abodes. But so long as it is human--which is the same thing as divine--it must be driven, in spite of its own will, by the impulse to move on to new homes. The fever of migration is contained within its very nature, and it can hope to escape it only for a time" (121).
--"In some places we might feel it a duty to inculcate the need of change and of faster progress, but in the modern American city is certainly not one of these, and there would seem little danger within its walls of laying too much emphasis on the beauty of respose" (124).
--On sleep:
--Talking about lying awake, frustrated, listening to the clock chime and counting down the hours til you have to get up again: "These things are your masters now, not your slaves, and the demon of sleeplessness...is upon you, insisting upon your working without, nay, against your will...The demonic power in you, however, is not demonic, but only a heavenly power perverted, just as all the faults of a child are only unregulated virtues. It is nothing but your own will which has become so strong that you are afraid of it. Do not complain, then, or hesitate to to use your will to keep yourself perfectly quiet at any rate. You can if you only think you can" (134). She suggests getting up and eating something warm. "While you are waiting for sleep to come to you, you will certainly be thinking, probably of the very things which you are most tired of considering; here too, you must use your will to determine the course of your thought, and if it persistently goes back to the avoided topic, you must just as persistently call it away and set it on another track. What that track shall be matters not much, but it must be one of your own choosing" (135). ((Love that. It's a great tip!!! Helped me already. But then the next sentence? "As it is by the will that you have sinned, so it is only by the road of the will that you can obtain remission of the penalties you have brought upon yourself." What?! Just no.))
--For sleeplessness, she suggests thinking through things with reason. "One thing you must not do, and that's... step into the domain of the emotions, and there is no sleep there" (138).
--"It is as much your duty to go to sleep as it is to eat your food" (140).
--"The conclusions formulated with so much pains in the night are seen with the first rays of the sun to be of no value in the day-world, and so gradually you learn to save yourself the labor of working them out" (142).
"In religion the influence which comes to the passive mind--made and held so by the active will--is called Grace, and it is that which will descend upon you in other domains if only you will let it come...The main trouble generally is that by your continual Restlessness you keep your soul in such a state that no influence can come to you from without" (146).
The restlessness of unused potential: "There is a Restlessness springing from the consciousness of power not fully utilized, which must be present wherever there is unused power of whatever kind....To see power is wasted is very hard. But really no power is ever wasted in the spiritual kingdom any more than in the material. It is only transmuted and correlated, so that there need never be mourning over a loss which does not exist, and the Restlessness of mourning will thus pass over into Rest" ( 147-149).
The need for focus: "Anything is restless which has not a purpose and hence it is that listlessness breeds Restlessness....How many of us are singing with overtones, and wondering why the life-dust is flying hither and thither, and why there is no rest in it? Suppose we were to sing only one pure tone, and see how quickly it would fall into order and symmetry" (152-153).
Chapter 5--Blue-rose Melancholy
The land of the Blue Rose is what I call the land of "should," or what some might call the land of "If only." "He who has once breathed the perfume of the blue flower has no more peace and quiet in his life, but is driven on and on, though his sore feet pain him, and he yearns to lay down his weary head to rest" (159). Or better, "[a woman who has breathed the blue flower] is always complaining gently that she cannot make her circles squares or her squares circles...She constructs an ideal world out of her own consciousness, and then feels injured because the world around her does not harmonize with it. And thus she falls a victim to the blue-rose melancholy" (161).
One thing that helps is "the tonic of regular work and enough or it, and the wholesome nervous shock which comes from contact with people entirely different from herself" (162-163).
"Only the flowing water is pure and sweet. Only the spinning top and the moving bicycle do not fall over. Rest is not round in irregular and purposeless motion, nor is it in stagnation; all real and firm rest is to be sought in harmonious action" (163). Figuring out how to do this takes practice, but just try! "Go on and make errors, and fall and get up again. Only go on! You will never learn to speak a foreign language if you are afraid of mistakes; so you will never do anything with your own life if you are discouraged by failure. You were made to fail over and over again, or you would never gain any strength. The harder time you have, the gladder you ought to be; for you are getting exercise and experience, and, then, God would never spend so much trouble in training you if you were not worth the effort" (164-165).
A side note: "A taste for the best literature is a blessed gift; if you have it not yet, strive towards it till you acquire it" (168).
"The problem before you is unchangeably and always, no what you 'would do if'--for that is the way the thought of the blue-rose melancholy runs--but what you will do on this particular gloomy day, in this particular room, with the particular people and things that are in it. You have got to play the game with the cards that have been dealt to you, and it is of no use for you to bewail your fate because you don't hold different ones. Look them over, arrange them, and play" (170).
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